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Greater Cortical Thickness in Elderly Female Yoga Practitioners—A Cross-Sectional Study

Yoga, a mind-body activity that requires attentional engagement, has been associated with positive changes in brain structure and function, especially in areas related to awareness, attention, executive functions and memory. Normal aging, on the other hand, has also been associated with structural a...

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Autores principales: Afonso, Rui F., Balardin, Joana B., Lazar, Sara, Sato, João R., Igarashi, Nadja, Santaella, Danilo F., Lacerda, Shirley S., Amaro Jr., Edson, Kozasa, Elisa H.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5476728/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28676757
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2017.00201
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author Afonso, Rui F.
Balardin, Joana B.
Lazar, Sara
Sato, João R.
Igarashi, Nadja
Santaella, Danilo F.
Lacerda, Shirley S.
Amaro Jr., Edson
Kozasa, Elisa H.
author_facet Afonso, Rui F.
Balardin, Joana B.
Lazar, Sara
Sato, João R.
Igarashi, Nadja
Santaella, Danilo F.
Lacerda, Shirley S.
Amaro Jr., Edson
Kozasa, Elisa H.
author_sort Afonso, Rui F.
collection PubMed
description Yoga, a mind-body activity that requires attentional engagement, has been associated with positive changes in brain structure and function, especially in areas related to awareness, attention, executive functions and memory. Normal aging, on the other hand, has also been associated with structural and functional brain changes, but these generally involve decreased cognitive functions. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to compare brain cortical thickness (CT) in elderly yoga practitioners and a group of age-matched healthy non-practitioners. We tested 21 older women who had practiced hatha yoga for at least 8 years and 21 women naive to yoga, meditation or any mind-body interventions who were matched to the first group in age, years of formal education and physical activity level. A T1-weighted MPRAGE sequence was acquired for each participant. Yoga practitioners showed significantly greater CT in a left prefrontal lobe cluster, which included portions of the lateral middle frontal gyrus, anterior superior frontal gyrus and dorsal superior frontal gyrus. We found greater CT in the left prefrontal cortex of healthy elderly women who trained yoga for a minimum of 8 years compared with women in the control group.
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spelling pubmed-54767282017-07-04 Greater Cortical Thickness in Elderly Female Yoga Practitioners—A Cross-Sectional Study Afonso, Rui F. Balardin, Joana B. Lazar, Sara Sato, João R. Igarashi, Nadja Santaella, Danilo F. Lacerda, Shirley S. Amaro Jr., Edson Kozasa, Elisa H. Front Aging Neurosci Neuroscience Yoga, a mind-body activity that requires attentional engagement, has been associated with positive changes in brain structure and function, especially in areas related to awareness, attention, executive functions and memory. Normal aging, on the other hand, has also been associated with structural and functional brain changes, but these generally involve decreased cognitive functions. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to compare brain cortical thickness (CT) in elderly yoga practitioners and a group of age-matched healthy non-practitioners. We tested 21 older women who had practiced hatha yoga for at least 8 years and 21 women naive to yoga, meditation or any mind-body interventions who were matched to the first group in age, years of formal education and physical activity level. A T1-weighted MPRAGE sequence was acquired for each participant. Yoga practitioners showed significantly greater CT in a left prefrontal lobe cluster, which included portions of the lateral middle frontal gyrus, anterior superior frontal gyrus and dorsal superior frontal gyrus. We found greater CT in the left prefrontal cortex of healthy elderly women who trained yoga for a minimum of 8 years compared with women in the control group. Frontiers Media S.A. 2017-06-20 /pmc/articles/PMC5476728/ /pubmed/28676757 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2017.00201 Text en Copyright © 2017 Afonso, Balardin, Lazar, Sato, Igarashi, Santaella, Lacerda, Amaro and Kozasa. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Afonso, Rui F.
Balardin, Joana B.
Lazar, Sara
Sato, João R.
Igarashi, Nadja
Santaella, Danilo F.
Lacerda, Shirley S.
Amaro Jr., Edson
Kozasa, Elisa H.
Greater Cortical Thickness in Elderly Female Yoga Practitioners—A Cross-Sectional Study
title Greater Cortical Thickness in Elderly Female Yoga Practitioners—A Cross-Sectional Study
title_full Greater Cortical Thickness in Elderly Female Yoga Practitioners—A Cross-Sectional Study
title_fullStr Greater Cortical Thickness in Elderly Female Yoga Practitioners—A Cross-Sectional Study
title_full_unstemmed Greater Cortical Thickness in Elderly Female Yoga Practitioners—A Cross-Sectional Study
title_short Greater Cortical Thickness in Elderly Female Yoga Practitioners—A Cross-Sectional Study
title_sort greater cortical thickness in elderly female yoga practitioners—a cross-sectional study
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5476728/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28676757
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2017.00201
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